Education, livability, and economic ties with Asia will determine the long-term success of Washington, according to Microsoft’s top public-policy man.
Brad Smith, general counsel and vice president of legal and corporate affairs for the software giant, held an open discussion with local media last week to discuss the company’s stance on issues ranging from network neutrality to immigration reform.
Seattle Children’s offered a sneak peak Tuesday of its new Eastside health clinic, located on the 1500 block of 116th Ave. NE in Bellevue’s Hospital District.
The $75 million facility opens July 20, providing check-ups and services for kids with minor problems such as ear infections, broken bones, and hernias.
The new two-story clinic allows Children’s to shift a portion of its out-patient operations to Bellevue while still providing in-patient care at the older Seattle campus. It also helps to separate seriously ill patients from those who are generally healthy.
“It can be hard to celebrate a simple ear-tube operation with your kid when there’s someone critically ill right next to you,” said Paula Holmes, director of the new clinic.
The Bellevue facility houses 15 pediatric specialites, as well as urgent care, radiology, a surgery center, a sports therapy gym, a pharmacy, a Starbucks, and a playroom for waiting siblings. The campus also includes two levels of underground parking.
Many spaces in the 80,000-square-foot clinic allow for flexible uses. The cardiology department, for instance, doubles as an urgent care center during evenings.
The hours for urgent care will be 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends and holidays.
Planners were meticulous in the design of the new building, according to Children’s vice president of facilities Todd Johnson.
“We really worked hard on the way things flow so patients wouldn’t be dealing with that spaghetti effect as they move around,” Johnson said.
The building layout also separates “scary sides from non-scary sides,” according to Holmes. That means the operating rooms are not visible from the induction rooms, where children go to sleep before operations.
Everything at the new clinic is designed with kids in mind. The walls are painted with bright colors, and each door is adorned with depictions of Northwest flora and fauna.
The pre-surgery experience at Children’s is designed to put kids at ease. Younger patients can breathe flavored gas and gaze up at twinkling ceiling lights while staff members explain their procedures in fairy-tale terms.
The clinic’s sports gym is designed to turn mundane physical therapy into a form of play.
“Kids don’t just want to do reps on a machine,” said Laura Crooks, director of rehab services at the Bellevue clinic.
The gym includes an adjustable basketball hoop and a partial court.
The clinic also incorporates environmentally friendly features, like natural rubber floors in the physical-therapy room, cork floors in other areas, natural lighting, green rooftops, and an outdoor “healing garden.”
The building achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Bellevue clinic provides room for 65 new staff positions with Children’s. Some existing employees will rotate between the Seattle and Bellevue campuses, while others will simply transfer to Bellevue.
“Many of our staff live on the Eastside, but historically worked in Seattle,” Holmes said. “Those people are very excited now.”
Parent William Pranzini says the new clinic will be convenient for him as well. The Kirkland resident has been making regular trips to the Children’s hospital in Seattle so doctors can monitor his son, who had a small tumor removed from his back last year.
“It’ll be nice to finally be out here so close,” he said.
Parents will have the freedom to choose which clinic to visit for the services offered at both campuses.
Children’s has enough room at the Bellevue site to build another facility equal in size to the new clinic.
The organization has leased 12 exam rooms at Bellevue’s Overlake Medical Tower for over a decade. Only the sleep-disorder and behavioral-health services divisions will remain there once the new building opens in July.
Among the dignitaries attending the open house on Tuesday were Bellevue Mayor Grant Degginger and Rep. Marcie Maxwell.
“There’s a huge need for this on the Eastside,” Maxwell said. “We have a lot of young families, and this is a huge asset for those families.”
Maxwell also noted that Rep. Deb Eddy was instrumental in setting aside $2 million in the state’s capital budget to help pay for the clinic.
It’s been nearly a month since wildlife officials tried to trap a black bear in Bellevue with doughnuts, maple syrup and salmon.
The technique didn’t work, and multiple residents have reported sightings since then.
Lori Cleary spotted a black bear on May 21 while gazing out a window at her home near Cougar Mountain. She says wildlife officers told her to ignore it.
An identical-looking bruin appeared in her yard on June 3, this time grabbing a bag of garbage and hauling it up a tree.
Cleary’s nanny and 2-year-old daughter didn’t notice the animal when they pulled into the driveway. The bear was spooked, and ran down the tree as they walked by, startling the pair.
Guillermo Navarro, who lives nearby in the Somerset neighborhood, spotted a black bear in his backyard on May 24. He saw what appeared to be the same bear standing 20 feet from his kitchen window a week later. The animal “sniffed around” and walked off into a nearby greenbelt.
Navarro says he contacted the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but the agency refused to take action.
“Until it gets aggressive, they won’t do anything,” Navarro said.
That’s generally the policy with Fish and Wildlife. The agency doesn’t try to capture bears unless they show aggressive behavior or appear to have lost their fear of humans.
Officers set the trap with salmon and sweets in Bellevue around May 21 because a bear tried to enter a man’s garage in the Somerset neighborhood. The animal ignored attempts to frighten it away and showed aggressive behavior towards an officer who tried to tranquilize it.
The bear eventually escaped into the woods.
Several East Bellevue residents have called Fish and Wildlife about bear sightings since then, even though the trap was set for three days.
“We’ve been getting calls on that bear every other day with people demanding something be done about it,” said Sgt. Kim Chandler of Fish and Wildlife. “That’s not going to happen.”
Instead, officers continue warning residents to remove sources of quick calories that attract bears – like bird feeders, garbage, and sticky barbeque grills.
Navarro isn’t happy with that approach.
“Weird that something bad needs to happens before they take action,” he said. “Where is the prevention culture?”
Chandler says any bears that have been wandering near the suburbs will return to their natural habitat as fruits and berries appear in the wilderness. He said that time is right about now.
“There’s always a marked decline in the frequency of bear complaints once the berries come out,” he said.
Wildlife officials have responded to some bear sighting since setting the trap in Bellevue, but they only go after the most aggressive animals. Most of the incidents this spring have occurred in more rural places like Maple Valley, Chandler said.
One case involved a bear that ripped down a garage door in Issaquah. That was after the homeowners had removed all food sources from their yard.
But for every case of an aggressive bear, there are more incidents involving residents who haven’t followed the advice of wildlife officers, Chandler said.
One woman e-mailed six photos of a bear in her yard, requesting help from Fish and Wildlife. The animal had her bird feeder in its mouth.
“This is strictly food-oriented behavior for a bear,” Chandler said. “You’ve got to kind of help them out.”
Cleary says she’s removed all potential food sources from her yard, and she keeps her garbage indoors now. She is also more vigilant when she steps outside.
“When I walk out, I look in every direction to make sure the bear’s not around,” she said.
Interstate 90 will be fully closed for brief evening stretches near Snoqualmie Pass from Thursday through early October. Crews will be blasting rock during those times as they prepare to add new lanes.
Closures will occur during non-peak hours every Monday and Thursday, beginning at 8 p.m. and lasting roughly an hour, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).
Construction is under way on the state’s “Bellevue Braids” project, but the work motorists see today is only a hint of things to come.
The gist of the plan is to create a new system of highway ramps that will carry traffic directly between downtown Bellevue and SR-520 without using Interstate 405.
All work on the project is scheduled to be complete by summer 2012.
King County prosecutors have charged a Bellevue massage therapist, who moonlighted as a driver’s education instructor on Mercer Island, with two counts of first-degree child molestation.
Charging documents say Mark Douglas Satterlund, 50, groped an 11-year-old boy at his home office.
The city of Bellevue has changed the zoning rules for Kelsey Creek Center to make it easier for re-development of the mostly vacant shopping area, which has become an eyesore for the neighborhood since Kmart left in 2000.
Bellevue police believe they have busted up a burglary ring responsible for a recent spike in local break-ins.
Detectives last month arrested three men suspected in a rash of burglaries in the Somerset and Newport Shores neighborhoods. They say the suspects may also be connected to burglaries and trafficking of stolen goods in Kent, Federal Way and Auburn.
Seahawks draft pick and former Notre Dame wide receiver Golden Tate was caught trespassing in the Bellevue Top Pot doughnut shop Saturday morning at 3 a.m., according to Bellevue Police.
Bellevue filmmakers Ilona Rossman Ho and Shannon Hart-Reed won a Northwest Regional Emmy award in the special-event coverage category Saturday for their short film “Kites Over Washington.”
Hart-Reed directed the film and Ho produced it.
“Kites Over Washington” documents a temporary art installation of 131 long-tail kites that flew over Gasworks Park to promote Credit Unions of Washington.
The Sasquatch may be folklore, but its local impact is real.
The Washington State Recycling Association has awarded its 2010 Youth Education Recycler of the Year Award to Bellevue for the city’s Carbon Yeti program
A group of Eastside business and political leaders briefed Sen. Patty Murray on Tuesday about plans for urbanizing the Bel-Red corridor, hoping the three-term lawmaker can bring federal dollars to the cause.
India’s native “Hugging Saint” is at the Bellevue Hyatt this weekend, sharing her loving embrace as part of a perennial world tour.
Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is like a teddy bear that hugs back.
Know simply as “Amma” or “The Hugging Saint” to most, she travels the world like a modern-day Jesus, spreading love and comforting the afflicted. Some say she even heals the sick.
The state public disclosure commission says Bellevue Deputy Mayor Conrad Lee is guilty of campaign violations for failing to report expenditures in a timely manner during his 2009 bid for re-election.
The commission ordered Lee’s campaign to pay a $500 fine, which will be reduced to $300 if there are no violations during his next run for office.
Budgets, development and transportation were key topics as the mayors of Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland discussed the future of their Eastside cities during a Tuesday forum in Bellevue.
The King County Council failed in two separate attempts this week to pass tax increases that would have gone before voters in August.
The proposals were aimed at preventing cuts to criminal justice services – including the Sheriff’s Office, the county prosecutor’s office and courts – as the county works to overcome a $60 million deficit.
Four members – all of them unofficial Republicans – opposed the measures, making it impossible to gain the six votes needed for passage of emergency legislation.
Pending home sales in the Puget Sound region reached their highest level since August 2006 as the tax credit for homebuyers expired in April.
The question now is whether the housing market will lose its momentum with all that deadline-generated urgency missing.
Former Chinook PTSA treasurer James “David” Glass pleaded not guilty Wednesday to embezzling tens of thousands last year from an account he managed.
Prosecutors have charged Glass, a Clyde Hill resident, with felony theft for allegedly pilfering over $63,000 from the parent-teacher group.
Wildlife officials are using a mixture of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, maple syrup and salmon to lure a bold black bear that alarmed residents in Bellevue’s Somerset neighborhood Thursday afternoon.
Sgt. Kim Chandler of the state Fish and Wildlife department said the bear was aggressive and acting far too comfortable around humans.
Bellevue-based Expedia announced today that it has started a new web site catering to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) travelers.
